Kevin's favorite toys of the 1980s were, by far, the Masters of the Universe collection. One day at Penn State, he walked by a little shop and saw a He-Man and the Masters of the Universe t-shirt. Amazing! He bought the shirt and it was immediately his favorite t-shirt. The 80sTees business idea really started in the summer of 1999 when Kevin wore the He-Man t-shirt to Kennywood, a Pittsburgh amusement park. Throughout the day many people approached him and asked, "Where did you get that shirt?". He realized that these shirts obviously were not easy enough to find, and he changed that by creating 80sTees.com.

Kevin graduated in 1999 from Penn State University with a Bachelor of Science in Geo-Environmental Engineering. Upon graduation, he had a few weeks to kill before starting his new job for an environmental consulting firm. So he made a deal to bulk purchase some retro shirts from the small store in State College, PA, where he bought his original shirt. He started out selling Transformers, ThunderCats, Care Bears, and Strawberry ShortCake t-shirts on Ebay. After the first He-Man shirt sold for over $30.00, he knew he had stumbled onto something that people wanted to buy! It was at this point that he began selling shirts on http://www.80sTees.com, paving the way for the website you see today.

Originally, we only accepted personal checks and money orders. Our first electronic payment method was PayPal, which allows individuals to send money via credit card. PayPal is very popular among Ebay users, but was an inconvenience for those people not already a member. We now accept all major credit cards, PayPal, and check/money orders.

In 2003, we upgraded our site and added features such as gift certificates, coupons, and a site-wide search engine. In January of 2005 we added an industry-leading site search and navigation tool. You can now shop our site and see only the items that match your profile. You can search based on your gender, size, your favorite characters, or even how recently we added the items!

On February 16th, 2006, we launched our redesigned site format. Since then, we made changes to our product pages and added some great features while keeping the overall look of the site similar.

In November 2007, we added guaranteed shipping dates to all UPS orders. Now when you place an order you know when you will receive it. This is a great convenience for anyone that needs something by a birthday or specific date. Next, we added our "exclusive" product section. This section highlights products that you won't be able to find at other retailers. As of November 2008, we have over 200 exclusive products, and the list keeps growing.

In early 2008, we added live chat to the site. Unlike some sites that show you the live chat button all the time even if no one is available, we only show the button when we are ready to assist you. In the summer of 2008, we added product reviews from Power Reviews. Power Reviews is a third party that manages our review program, so you know that the reviews are legitimate. Customer reviews are a great way to learn more about a product from someone who actually uses it.

As you can see, we are always working to improve our website and our selection of 80s t-shirts. Along with the extensive collection of 80s themed t-shirts we offer, you will notice that we have lots of non-80s shirts as well. We have evolved our product line to include some of our favorite pop-culture items, even if they aren't from the 80s! We are big fans of The Office and Family Guy, and some older stuff like Sanford and Son and MASH. By offering such an vast variety of t-shirts, this is another way we are constantly working hard to meet your needs.

Just as the Joker wondered where Batman gets all his wonderful toys, many people also wonder where we get our t-shirts. 80sTees does not own the rights to all of the characters & licenses that we sell. Rather, we buy most of the shirts wholesale from the license holders. For instance, we buy our Star Wars shirts from a company that has an agreement with George Lucas. The company we buy from pays George Lucas a royalty for every shirt they sell to us.

We do have a few license agreements that allow us to produce our own t-shirts. That is why our selection of Top Gun t-shirts is the best on the web. You can check out all of our original shirts in the Exclusives section of the site. As we grow we will be adding even more licenses so that we can continue to offer the best selection of licensed t-shirts on the web.

It's likely that you have seen one of our many print advertisements in magazines such as Maxim, US Weekly, Rolling Stone, In Touch, etc. Our shirts have also been featured in the following TV shows and movies:

• Everybody Loves Raymond (Batman shirt worn by Chris Elliot)
• Blade: Trinity (Lost Boys shirt worn by punk kid who attacks Jessica Biel)
• Good Morning America Valentine's Day (Joel Siegel gave a Jake Ryan shirt to a weekend anchor for a Valentine's Day segment on romantic movies)
• Stacy Keibler requested our shirts for a photo shoot for Sole Collector magazine. At the time Stacy was known for being a WWE wrestler, but now she has shot to fame with her success on the ABC show Dancing with the Stars. She appeared in a Rainbow Brite shirts and Jem and the Holograms shirts.
• MTV2 VJ Jim Shearer has requested and worn 80sTees' shirts
• Wild Hogs: Tim Allen's character wore our Who Made Who AC/DC t-shirt